“My life experiences alone—even if there were no higher authority on the
subject—qualify me to talk about the strife called marriage. You see, I’ve been
married five times since I was twelve years old (thanks be to God), and all of
my husbands had their good points. Someone told me not too long ago, though,
that I should have only gotten married once since

the sharp words
that Jesus said to the Samaritan: ‘You’ve had five husbands,’ He said. ‘So the
man you think you’re married to now isn’t your husband.’ That’s what He said,
for sure, though what He meant exactly I’m not really sure. But I ask you this:
Why wasn’t the Samaritan’s fifth mate her husband? How many men was she allowed
to marry in her lifetime? I’ve never heard an exact number myself. People can
read and reread the Bible over and over, but I know one thing for sure, and
that’s that

God commanded us to increase and multiply. That nice little bit of
scripture I can understand quite well. And I also know that He instructed my
husbands to leave their mothers and fathers and take me as their wife. He never
said, though, how many men I could marry over the course of my life, so why do
people look down on marrying more than once—or eight times for that matter—as
much as they do?